There’s even an available form on the site where you can recover your lost funds if you prove your identity and provide the necessary evidence.

Furthermore, shortly after this announcement, another incident came along. Users’ funds were stolen after the site’s servers had been hacked. Most of the users were let down, and despite all attempts of the Silk Road to make a positive impression and gain a certain reputation, most of the people were frightened of the name of Silk Road 3.1.

The dark market community was truly divided on this topic. Many considered that the owners of SR3.1 pulled off a big exit scam. By extension, they also believed that the announcement of the hacking was an enormous lie.

Many considered that the owners of SR3.1 pulled off a big exit scam.

Still, many comrades believe that a third party was responsible for this incident and the owners of the Silk Road 3.1 were honorable members of the darknet market community.

After a certain time has passed, I am glad to tell you the Silk Road 3.1 is back up! Subsequently resolving some technical issues, the Silk Road market has risen again as of August 1.

The comeback of the Silk Road 3.1 brought much more obligations to the owners of this market—mainly showing their reliability and trustworthiness to the site’s vendors and buyers.

The ultimate goal is to prove their loyalty in order to win their previous users again. Every doubt any of the users has is justified and upheld, so all that is left for the Silk Road 3.1 and its owners is to confirm the market’s decency and correctness.

It is only a matter of time when Silk Road 3.1’s administrators will prove their dedication to their comrades.

On February 3rd, 47-year old Kevin Campbell of Chicago pleaded guilty in a U.S. District Court in Seattle to charges for peddling illicit drugs on Silkroad, including heroin and prescription medications that led to the death of a 27-year old man living in Bellevue.

The Bellevue man died from an overdose after using heroin coupled with prescription drugs obtained from the Silkroad marketplace. Campbell is a drug treatment worker who decided to make some extra cash by selling heroin and prescription drugs on Silkroad, the infamous dark web marketplace. However, his get rich quick scheme turned into a tragedy following a customer’s overdose in August 2013.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Silk Road 3.0 is BACK ONLINE and open for business. The team did a massive security overhaul on the site to try and make it more secure and anonymous.

According to case record, the emergency crew received a distress call from a Bellevue home, where they found Jordan Mettee lying unconscious in his bedroom.

He was rushed to the hospital and was later pronounced dead. In Mettee’s home, the authorities found the Silkroad website open on his computer screen, which provided substantial evidence of where he had sourced the drugs and who the provider was.

A detailed exchange on the website between the vendor and the deceased revealed that Campbell was the Silkroad vendor who had provided the drugs.

Further investigation revealed that Campbell was an active drug dealer who supplied illicit substances, such as prescription drugs and heroin, to clients across the country through Silkroad’s platform in exchange for bitcoin.

The drugs were delivered in altered DVD cases, thus avoiding easy detection. An altered DVD case was found near the deceased body, and Campbell’s fingerprints were found on the case.

A search warrant was issued to search the Campbell’s residence, where concrete evidence of his drug trafficking activities was obtained.

Aside from the drugs themselves, other incriminating evidence was discovered, such as shipping and packaging equipment, measuring scales and devices, and empty DVD cases.

The Trial

In a press release, U.S. Attorney Annette Hayes mentioned that this case is both a tragedy and an outrage for allowing a drug trafficker to work at a drug treatment center, a place where drug addicts came to seek help.

Hayes further stressed that the heroin sold by the defendant through Silkroad killed a customer, and will request the court to give a sentence that reflects that fact.

Sale of Drugs on the Rise Even After Closure of SilkRoad

Drug treatment worker who decided to make some extra cash by selling heroin and prescription drugs on Silkroad.

Launched in 2011, Silkroad was one of the first modern darknet marketplaces that allowed users to access illegal drugs securely and anonymously without detection.

The original Silkroad site was shut down in 2013 with the arrest of its founder. More than 13,000 drug listings had been discovered from Silkroad.

Since then, the number of websites similar to Silkroad that sell drugs and other illicit merchandise has exponentially grown, with their preferred currency being bitcoin.

Verdict

Campbell’s case is not the first of its kind. In May 2014, Jenna White and her co-defendant Steven Sadler pleaded guilty to using the Silkroad marketplace to sell and distribute illegal substances.

Annette Hayes, the acting U.S Attorney, stated that Sadler had sold close to $1,000,000 USD worth of heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine through the Silkroad prior to the marketplace being shut down in 2013.

Evidence retrieved by the authorities at his residence included drugs, a firearm, and several thousand dollars. Sadler was ultimately given a five-year prison sentence.

Over the past few years, darknet marketplaces such as Silkroad have become a headache of the police and the judicial system due to their employment of new forms of technology to communicate and transact, making it difficult for authorities to handle.

Even after the shutdown of Silkroad website, the investigators established that Campbell found other avenues to sell drugs to customers. With such concrete evidence against him, Campbell may be facing heavy charges. He will be sentenced on May 9th, 2017.

So, how did the authorities caught the people behind Silkroad and Silkroad 2.0? In this article, we are going to explore that question.

The Idea

Before we address the main question, it’s best that we cover a few important details. Otherwise, you could end up backtracking on some information you might need to get grasp the entire picture.

At its core, the Silkroad was basically just like any other online store. However, what mainstream online stores can’t do is sell illicit merchandise or services.

There are basically two major problems when selling or purchasing items online. Let’s tackle the first one.

The first problem is identity. The mainstream internet is being monitored by the authorities. Everyone knows this. Hence, selling or purchasing illegal items may prove to be tough. Then, the solution came.

At some point, the Tor network was invented. The exact mechanism how the Tor network system works is beyond this article.

Yes, it can be very complex. For now, let’s just say that Tor can help you surf a special network, which is known as the Dark Web, anonymously.

With anonymity, you can free yourself from the worry of someone monitoring your surfing history. But here’s the second problem.

Money trail! Whenever you do a transaction, there’s always a money trail. This is particularly the case with digital money that came from the bank.

Even if you are anonymous when you purchase something illicit, the money can be traced back to you. That means that you could end up with a new cellmate. Then, the breakthrough came along.

Bitcoins! Bitcoins was the last piece of the puzzle that allowed Silkroad 1 and 2 to flourish.

Bitcoin is a form of online currency that allows anonymous currency transaction. After these two issues were solved, Silkroad was born, and the rest is history.

Now the question is – if the Tor network and Bitcoin currency provided the security by being anonymous, how did the Silkroad founder get busted?

Silkroad and Silkroad 2.0 Bust

Months before Silkroad got popular, Ross Ulbricht was trying to spread the news of his new site; which was Silkroad.

First of all, nothing in this world is completely secure. Even the most secure network in the planet can be hacked.

It’s just a matter of allocating enough time and resources. Once we have that on the table, we can tackle the question a bit further.

The man behind the Silkroad was Ross Ulbricht a.k.a. “Dread Pirate Roberts” (DPR). He was the genius or the mastermind (depending on how you look at it) that married the idea of anonymous surfing and anonymous currency, thus creating an anonymous marketplace.

With Silkroad, one can actually sell anything. It’s just that the site was popularly used as a marketplace for illegal merchandise.

The idea of an anonymous currency and an anonymous network may be impressive, but the real reason Ross Ulbricht got busted was the plain old human error.

Months before Silkroad got popular, Ross Ulbricht was trying to spread the news of his new site; which was Silkroad. He did it by visiting forums sites.

In the forum posts, he left his email so anyone can contact him if anyone is interested. Here’s the thing – he publicly left an email with his name on it! This was the initial scent that the authorities followed, which eventually led to the fall of Silkroad 1. Now, how about Silkroad 2?

Silkroad 2.0 officially went up a month later after the shutdown of the original Silkroad. The man supposedly running Silkroad 2.0was Blake Benthall, also known as “Defcon.” Here’s the thing – someone obviously didn’t learn their lesson.

When Silk Road 2.0 went up, the site can be traced to an anonymous server. In the server details, the authorities found out that the server was registered to a [email protected]! From then on, it’s Silk Road 1 all over again.

Bottom Line

There is no such thing as a 100% secure network on this planet. Even if you can create something that is truly secure, which is close to impossible, you still need humans to access it.

And that is the biggest security hole – human error. Just like Silk Road 1 and 2. Everyone thought that it would be a supercomputer doing complicated stuff to crack the site’s security.

When in fact, it’s actually a human error, like leaving an email unintentionally that will cause the first domino to fall down.

Ross conveys his message of gratitude to all his family, friends and supporters.

Ross thought of himself as a libertarian, believed in personal freedom to do as each one pleased with minimal interference from others.

Therefore, his supporters saw him as a hero who attempted to tame a truly rough and unruly trade.

The Silkroad founder Ross Ulbricht admitted in the courtroom of the “little things” he missed from behind bars, like throwing a Frisbee to a dog in the park and Thanksgiving dinner with his family.

During an interview, the Silkroad creator stated that despite his present circumstances, he was thankful to his family, friends, and supporters.

Those who chose to believe in him. He said that they were a source of encouragement to him and words simply cannot describe that feeling of in-depth gratitude that he felt.

In 2013, Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silkroad, noted that the other thing that he was truly grateful for was that finally after one and a half months in the Special Housing Unit, (SHU), he was now in the general inmate population with other inmates.

The SHU was specially designed to isolate and punish the most chronic and dangerous of prisoners. It was a grim jail with maximum security.

The Silkroad founder was released from the SHU a day to his bail hearing.

Actually, his lawyer argued that Ross was non-violent and his confinement in the maximum security facility was not a necessity.

He is positive despite being curtailed his freedom.

Now Ross was grateful that he could breathe fresh air, look out of a window, interact with people and even play a game of chess.

Isolated as he was from the outside, the numerous letters and messages the Silkroad creator got from his supporters gave him hope.

Those who advocated for his release and stood up for freedom were his source of encouragement. The Silkroad founder actually said that prison wasn’t as bad as he had fathomed.

One inmate actually gave him a piece of soap, another lent him a book to read and ward off the boredom and nostalgic feeling.

The Silkroad creator said that the inmates were given a treat of chicken and cranberry source on Thanksgiving, just to make the day festive for them, too.

The Silkroad founder Ulbricht shared that, just like life on the outside, there were acts of kindness and compassion in the prison, amidst the periodical harshness and power trips.

Ulbricht said he was grateful and that he would not blame anyone for his choices in life. The founder of the Silkroad was also grateful that now he could talk to his visitors over a table and not through a plexiglass like before.

Life had taught him to be grateful for the little things he once took for granted when he was a freeman. He said the things we take for granted matter a great deal in prison.

The Silkroad creator sends his “thank you” message to his family, friends, and supporters who have given and dedicated their time, resources, and love which meant the world to him, even from behind bars.

Zerocoin Protocol is different from all previous approaches, offering a level of privacy not found in any other cryptocurrency.

It is important to note that ZCoin is not affiliated in any way with Zcash, which also adopts the Zero-Knowledge technology on its network.

Other notable users of the Zero-Knowledge technology include the Komodo Project.

ZCoin Pledges $25,000 To the Silkroad Founder’s Cause

Le and Insom are known avid supporters of what the Silkroad founder, Ross Ulbricht, represented.

They firmly believe in liberty and free market enterprise and hold on to their strong opinions concerning the unfair trial of the Silkroad founder.

According to the ZCoin founders, Ulbricht’s Silkroad was a herald to the era of free commerce and promoted individual liberty.

Therefore,it comes as no surprise that ZCoin has officially pledged to commit to donate 100 ZCoins every month for the next four years to support the Silkroad founder’s cause and also to finance his latest appeal.

They made the statement on their blog and mentioned that the donations to the various charities supporting Ulbricht’s cause would facilitate the Silkroad creator’s quest for freedom via an appeal.

They also went ahead to do a quick calculation of the accumulative amount of ZCoins, their donations would garner over the course of four years based on its current exchange rate ($25,000).

The donations received by the Ross Ulbricht charities look to cover any legal expenses including the cost of funding his lawyers as they embark on the appeal.

“The war on drugs is a complete failure” – ZCoin Founders

Gary Le, ZCoin Developer

Le and Insom feel strongly about the war in history, especially as the government paints it, and were not afraid to term it “a complete failure” on the government’s part.

In their opinion, the government has turned the war on drugs into a business venture, funded mostly by the asset seizure policy that allows drugs, money and other assets obtained in a raid to be stolen by government “bandits.”

They believe that Ulbricht’s Silkroad was the first to try and curb the government’s exploits using technology to beat the system and keep Ulbricht and various Silkroad traders away from the government’s sights.

The ZCoin founders believe that if it were not the government’s self-serving motives, Ulbricht would not only have been exempted from such a strict sentencing, he would also not have been sent to prison at all.

Silkroad created a peaceful environment where consenting individuals of age could conduct various trades, according to the two ZCoin founders.

Life imprisonment without parole for the Silkroad founder was unwarranted and a punishment that was generally deemed excessive, especially considering the fact that drug offenders rarely get slapped with sentences that harsh.

ZCoin’s Quest for an Ideal World in the Wake of Silkroad

The ZCoin founders believe that their creation continues what Silkroad had started before being abruptly dismantled by the government three years ago.

They believe that by combining the innovativeness of the Bitcoin protocol with the privacy-centric Zero-Knowledge technology, they will eventually achieve total non-interference from governments and other authorities that impact on individuals’ competitive processes.

The ultimate goal, according to the blog post on their website, is to create individual liberty, a free market and, most importantly, bring peace to the world.

New trends in Technology industry are like daily events, because of the high number and quality of people working in this domain, innovation is almost a routine task – while doing the impossible or unthinkable is a near-future target.

Every now and then, the “regular” population adopts one of the new trends in the business, moving it from a curiosity to a world-changing idea.

In 2008, the most widely-accepted technological breakthrough was the Bitcoin. However, one of the biggest pieces of regarding the Bitcoin connected the currency to Silkroad – a famous online black market.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Silk Road 3.0 is BACK ONLINE and open for business. The team did a massive security overhaul on the site to try and make it more secure and anonymous.

After the appearance of the Bitcoin, people have often wondered why a cryptocurrency took so long to appear in our lives.

The idea behind the Bitcoin is simple, it is a transfer of authority and a virtual currency which you can use to pay anything and everything online.

Although the idea went exceptionally well on paper, thereality was a bit slower to react.

Even in 2015, the number of merchants accepting payments in Bitcoins just passed the 100,000 mark – not enough to be called a full-fledged “revolution.”

The U.S. Government and security agencies didn’t give the currency lots of attention at the beginning either, but that all changed in 2011 when they targeted the above-mentioned Silkroad.

Since the currency was more-or-less completely anonymous and impossible to track, it quickly became the preferred way to pay for certain goods or services which were illicit.

This paired exceptionally well with the now-defunct website, the Silkroad.

It was owned by an individual called Ross William Ulbricht, which was a standard online marketplace – except for the fact that the goods that were traded in Silkroad were highly illicit.

Silkroad made a small fortune functioning as an online black market for drugs – but Ross Ulbricht quickly caught the attention of the authorities.

The founder of Silkroad was arrested in October 2013 and was charged with several accusations – ranging from drug trafficking to money laundering conspiracies.

Basically, he was charged to have conspired with every illicit dealing that took place on the Silkroad.

The Bitcoin in connection with the Silkroad, a famous online black market performed a record-breaking bust of more than $28 million.

The FBI took the entire scene one step further, and at the end of that month, made its biggest Bitcoin confiscation in history, from various members of the Silkroad.

The FBI seized just over 144,000 Bitcoins, an amount equivalent to roughly $28 million.

Along with this operation, the U.S. authorities also shut down Silkroad and sentenced Ross Ulbricht to no less than life in jail.

The size of the undertaking was the impressive part of the story, along with bringing the Silkroad to nationwide public’s attention.

It’s not an everyday occurrence you see a government take hold of $30 million in Bitcoins, especially for online transactions involving websites like Silkroad.

The size of the action also showed the world the downsides of having a currency such as the Bitcoin: having it used to its fullest for wrongdoings.

Since Bitcoin transactions are hard to track, especially when using anonymity tools like Tor, they are the perfect method of committing online frauds or crimes.

While Silkroad was closed, there is no exact quantity of how many of these websites functions in the U.S. alone, not to mention worldwide, where information security isn’t treated as seriously as in the United States.

Ross Ulbricht’s trial was relatively short and easy. His only defense was that while he had indeed found Silkroad, he gave up its administration to other people – a fact which was quickly proven false by prosecutors.

He was quickly sentenced to life in prison and was turned into one of the most famous examples of 21st-century criminals.

Silkroad was quickly shut down after his conviction, proving that he was indeed one of the main players on the website.

Smart, using technology to his advantage and always on top of his game, Ross Ulbricht has been a great example of what can happen when crimes update themselves to get in line with 21st-century technology.

To sum up, the 28th of October will be remembered as the day in which the largest-ever Bitcoin confiscation was made.

This confiscation marked the end of the Silkroad and a lifetime conviction of its owner, founder, and administrator, Ross Ulbricht.

Privacy and power are great additions to everyday life for normal people, but if they fall into the wrong hands, we all know what they’re capable of.

Six members of the Italian Mafia Brussels were arrested in Belgium, the US, and Romania. All the six are now in custody awaiting trial.

The IMB was taken down through a joint international police operation.

The two key members of the organization, Filip Simion, and Leonardo Cristea were arrested by the police back in May 2016 during simultaneous early morning raids in Bucharest, Romania.

Filip and Leonardo are two among the six members of the Italian Mafia Brussels who have been arrested this year.

This collaboration between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Europol was carried out in the United States, France, Belgium, and Romania.

The operation also led to the arrest of Ymran Djavatkhanov and Andy Nestor, who were suspected to be members of the illegal dark net organization and have been named in the US indictment.

Filip Simon and Leonardo Cristea are currently awaiting trial in the United States.

They will be tried for money laundering and illegal importation of controlled substances.

If they are indeed found guilty, they may face a maximum sentence of 20 years.

On the other hand, Ymran Djavatkhanov and Andy Nestor will be tried in Belgium because the US is not going to pursue their extradition.

The IMB operated storefronts on several dark web platforms including the Silkroad and Silkroad 2.0 where bitcoin was the means of payment.

To avoid online surveillance, they employed some encrypted communication services such as WhatsApp, RedPhone, and Signal while using marketplaces on the Tor network.

According to the US Department of Justice, the investigation of the Italian Mafia Brussels and its relationship to Silkroad began in 2013 after a package containing MDMA was caught by the authorities.

The package was bound for Colorado from Belgium and contained more than 60 grams of MDMA.

The recipient of the package stated that they had bought the drugs from Italian Mafia Brussels.

A number of businesses also complained about receiving returned packages from the United States.

The businesses claimed that they had not sent the said packages.

The IMB operated by sending packages to their Silkroad and Silkroad 2.0 customers mostly in the United States and Canada.

These packages were made to look like they were sent from legal businesses.

The organization carefully chose businesses that dealt with products that were somewhat similar to the drugs.

From February to September 2014, the authorities in Belgium confiscated a number of packages from the organization.

These packages contained invoices similar to those of a legitimate company.

The investigations following these discoveries including the Silkroad investigations were vital in the tracking and subsequent arrest of Fillip Simion and his fellow group members.

Simion was tracked physically by the Romanian Federal Police and the Belgian Federal Judicial Police.

The information was uncovered in 2013 and 2014 after Silkroad and Silkroad 2.0 were shut down; this incident also shed light on the operations of IMB.

The recent spate of arrests and convictions related to the Silkroad and Silkroad 2.0 dark net markets can largely be attributed to the cooperation between international law enforcement agencies.

While these arrests are taking place, Silkroad and Silkroad 2.0 became defunct, and this is a great step against illegal underground operations, but they have done little to stop the online drug dealing operations.

According to recent surveys, dark net markets have steadily increased their customer base despite the revamped crackdown on illegal platforms by law enforcement agencies.

Due to the convenience of the dark net markets such as Silkroad, more people are using these platforms to gain access to drugs and other illegal products or services.

Prosecutors on the Silkroad case where 32-year-old Ross William Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison were questioned on the fairness of the judgment in a Manhattan federal appeals court on October 6.

Ulbricht was convicted for being the brains behind the dark web site Silkroad, which was best known for facilitating the sale of illicit drugs.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Silk Road 3.0 is BACK ONLINE and open for business. The team did a massive security overhaul on the site to try and make it more secure and anonymous.

In the oral arguments presided by three US Second Circuit Court of Appeals judges, numerous questions were posed concerning the even-handedness of the ruling, which was doled out by US District Judge Katherine Forrest in 2015.

Emotional Impact

Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison

One of the members of the three-judge panel presiding over the oral arguments, Judge Christopher Droney, openly challenged the sentencing as he pointed out that it was bizarre for a middle-aged man with no prior criminal records and no direct ties to any drug trafficking activities to get slapped with such a hefty sentence.

His colleague, Jude Gerard Lynch suspected that testimonies from the parents of two Silkroad buyers who died from overdosing at the 2015 trial could have had a heavy emotional impact on the case and might have influenced the over-the-top sentencing.

According to Lynch, the testimonies in the 2015 trial of the Silkroad creator put an extraordinary thumb on the scales against Ulbricht. The judge added on to call the sentence “quite a leap.”

Promising Innovator with Misplaced Priorities

The 32-year-old Californian resident was arrested following the seizure of the dark web drug market by the authorities.In its 2-year operation, Silkroad had made over $200 million in sales using the encrypted digital currency, bitcoin.

In its 2-year operation, Silkroad had made over $200 million in sales using the encrypted digital currency, bitcoin.

Ross Ulbricht was accused of masterminding the Silkroad operation from which he amassed $18 million.

Supporters of the Silkroad mastermind painted Ulbricht as a young, insightful innovator who had been led astray by his youth.

His defense lawyer Josh Dratel called on the three-judge panel to view the extreme ruling for what it really was.

Dratel painted Ulbricht

He called the life sentencing of the Silkroad mastermind unreasonable basing his remark on the fact that even murderers got a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Dratel went on to paint Ulbricht as the landlord of Silkroad who had no direct links to the activities that took place therein.

“No Ordinary Kingpin” – Prosecutor Eun Young Choi

Ross Ulbricht had been accused of hiring alleged assassins to get rid of enemies that threatened the continuity of Silkroad.

The three-judge panel saw this as more than just passive involvement and part of the reason why Ulbricht was tried as more than just the “landlord” of Silkroad.

Although none of the assassinations were carried out, prosecutor Eun Young Choi considered this a threat of violence that would have landed Ulbricht for life in prison even without the overdose deaths.

The prosecutor termed it unprecedented and went ahead to paint the Silkroad mastermind as an unusual kingpin.

Convicted Investigators

Ulbricht’s defense has also been trying to use the case of two federal agents who were convicted of bitcoin theft during the Silkroad investigation, as a pivot to overturn his conviction.

As things stand, there are no clear indications of when will be the judges’ ruling.

Apparently, he acquired the computer infrastructure needed to set up the marketplace, maintained the official website and also set customer and vendor policies. Some of these policies included what could be sold on the Silkroad.

Ross Ulbricht was arrested in October 2013 by the FBI where he was accused of being Dread Pirate Roberts. The Silkroad website was then seized and taken down.

At the time, Dread Pirate Robert’s wealth was estimated to be millions of dollars in bitcoins.

Ulbricht is now facing a life sentence without the possibility of parole. He was found guilty on several counts including conspiracy to distribute narcotics, conspiracy to commit computer hacking, and money laundering.

Points of Contention

American Greed unveils incredible true cases of crime and the lust for power…stories of people who do anything for money.

While Silkroad is definitely villainous from the law’s perspective, it does not exactly fit the profile of American Greed’s show.

The show usually focuses on the aspects of people or entities stealing money, something that DPR is not guilty of.

In fact, the instances of theft related to this case occurred against Silkroad itself, something the show failed to dwell on but should have.

It could be because of the fact that Carl Force, the person responsible for siphoning bitcoins from the Silkroad marketplace happens to be a former DEA agent.

Nonetheless, it was an informative alternative account and is bound to generate interesting comments in days to come.

It is definitely recommendable to any open-minded person seeking to know more about this underground online crime platform.

Other than being the first arrest of a Silkroad drug dealer since its launch in 2011, this particular case stood out for a number of reasons, some of which were baffling, to say the least.

Silkroad was eventually shut down in 2013 after three rocky years of operation and a bunch of significant arrests.

The Details

According to details that were revealed during the trial, the Australian Customs and Border Protection Services had begun to intercept packages addressed to Howard and his wife’s home address.

In total, 12 mail packages which contained MDMA (better known as ecstasy or simply “e”) were seized by the authorities.

A level of ingenuity had been used to package the drugs as they were cleverly hidden in paraphernalia such as lighters, DVD players, and cards.

Curiously enough, the Silkroad vendor did not notice the thinning inflow of drugs since he kept placing more and more orders on Silkroad as later revealed during the trial.

It was not until the authorities had intercepted a total of 46.9 grams of MDMA that they decided to take the next course of action.

The Bust

Australian Federal Police (AFP) first and very successful drug raid of a Silkroad dealer’s house.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) had enough to warrant a sweep of Howard’s home in Brunswick.

In what was the first and very successful drug raid of a Silkroad dealer’s house, the AFP managed to dig up an additional 50 grams of MDMA, 14.5 grams of cocaine and a whopping 989 grams of cannabis.

The drugs were in various stages of packaging as the police stumbled upon several zip-loc bags and scales at the scene.

Some of the drugs had already been packaged into sealed envelopes waiting for shipment.

The police then went on to perform a sweep of his vehicle where they unearthed what appeared to be innocuous sugar cubes that contained a substance which was unidentifiable at the time.

It was only after Howard’s sentencing that substance was identified as LSD. He was not charged with the possession of the drug.

Digital Evidence

The icing on the cake for the AFP was when they stumbled onto some very incriminating evidence on Howard’s phone and computers.

In addition to 148 text messages on his phone which irrevocably bound him to various drug trading activities and had numerous references to Silkroad, the police also found a number of pictures in his computers in which he could be seen handling the drugs.

In what many consider to be a humorous turn of events, his vehicle was also used as evidence against him owing to the fact that his license plate number was the same as his Silkroad moniker, “shadh1.”

Open and Shut Case

The prosecution had a field day cross-examining thousands of incriminating text messages dug up from the Silkroad vendor’s phone, some of which contained explicit information concerning his operations on Silkroad and the volume of drugs he had in possession.

Howard had little choice but to cooperate in the hopes of getting a more lenient sentencing.

He aided the police to search his computer where they managed to dig up a message Howard had posted on Silkroad when he began his illegal dealings.

In a nutshell, the message was a simple bio of who he was and what he did write in a very affable tone.

In addition to importing more than the required marketable quantity of border-controlled drugs into the country, Howard also pleaded guilty to charges of drug trafficking and the possession of over 30 controlled weapons.

Disclaimer

This website is just a blog that delivers the latest news on the Silk Road and it's latest versions of the Darknet Markets with the same name. We are in no way connected with these or any other Darknet Marketplaces. The information here is just intended for informational use and is not meant to be used for advice in any way. We do not endorse the use of illegal drugs and do not encourage any illegal activities in any way.